This is really a request for a Gift Card. Sell them a Gift Card! See Option 4 below.
If you want to record this as deposit for a customer you have several options. You can either enter a "deposit" item on a workorder, layaway or backorder in order to take the deposit -- or you can assign the customer account status and make a payment to their account (see below). We suggest Option 3 or 4 below.
If you are special ordering a product searhc this knowledge base for 'sprecial order' and view articles for that procedure.
Option 1 -- NOT recommended
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If you do not know what the customer is going to purchase yet, and don't wish to utilize the Gift Card feature provided with Store Operations, use the following procedure to take a deposit on an order.
Create an item with ILC (item lookup code) of DEP, description = DEPOSIT, item Type = non-inventory, non-taxable, prompt for price at POS.
When a customer wants to put down a deposit on a undecided item, enter DEP as the ILC. You will be prompted to enter a price. Enter the amount of the deposit.
Now press Ctrl-F8 to activate a Layaway. This transaction really is a Layaway, but with no product selected yet. You can also use Workorder for this purpose if the customer will not be making payments on the order.
Next press Shift-F9 Details and adjust the deposit amount to reflect the full dollar amount. Hit Enter and the Tender window will appear. Select the payment type and hit + for full payment.
When the item the customer wants to buy is determined, recall the Layaway, cursor up to the DEP item and change the quantity on order to 0. Do NOT delete the line item if you want to keep a clear record of when the deposit was applied. On the next line type in the item they are buying and press Enter. Select 'Pick up entire order' and complete the transaction. The deposit amount will be applied.
You could also update the record by selecting 'Save changes' if you'd like to enter the item before the customer picks up.
If you are tracking sales reps you will also need to cursor to the Sales Rep column, press F2 and select a Sales Rep. This feature allows you to split commissions by line item, or simply record who took the deposit and who made the sale.
Option 2
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The alternative is to use the workorder form for this situation and repeat the same process. You can easily view the DEP entries in the Layaway or Workorder Detail reports.
Note: You cannot use Backorders for this procedure as the backorder logic prevents this type of transaction. Backorders, however, can be used to take full payment on a product you are currently out of -- or zero down depending on your store policy and options setting in Manager.
Option 3
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If you would rather apply their deposit as a credit to account, without granting the customer full account charging priviledges, do the following.
Assign account status to the customer.
Leave credit limit set to zero.
Make a payment to the account (Shift F4 from POS).
This will leave a credit balance on the customer's account which can be used against future purchases. They won't be able to charge more than their credit balance on file.
Option 4: Issue a gift card. :-)
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This is the easiest way to manage funds that aren't assigned to a specific order. See related article on gift cards (search for 'gift'). You can also issue a gift card whenever a layaway workorder is cancelled but you do not want to refund the deposit. To do that, refund the deposit to Cash tender, then immediately sell a gift card for the deposit amount.
WARNING:If you created a layaway or workorder with no line items the sales order record will be assigned #0 on the receipt. There is no way to recall this entry for editing. If you took a deposit on this sales order, you will have to manually edit your books to allow for this discrepancy. You will also have to apply the deposit to the final sale as though the customer has money down. Example: Enter a cash payment slip for the deposit amount and count this slip as cash at end of day.
Dave J
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